


Many Faces

by mortalitasi



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2196552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wishes Shepard had more cause to be happy more often. She deserves it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Faces

Sometimes he sees her the way she’s supposed to be, laughing loud with the sun bright in her hair, yellow and red, dust motes scattering along her shoulders and swarming in the light as though the magnetism of her smile has drawn them out of whatever space they had been occupying before she’d come along. 

When she’s like that, one arm slung around Ashley’s shoulder and the other over Jack’s, making some joke only humans can get and being Yma instead of Shepard, he thinks that’s the way it should be all the time. 

"Get off me, Shepard," Jack says without any venom, but she just grins. 

"You’ll live."

"Yeah, but you might not."

"Are you threatening your CO?"

He watches her as she leans over to take her glass from the coffee table. Her fingers are crossed a dozen times over with small scars so unobtrusive it takes practice to tell one from the other— and he’s had plenty of it, because her hands fascinate him, much like the rest of her does. Human hands are strange things, but hers please him. He’s seen them clutching rifles, in gloves, out of them, held in his, pressed up against the walls of the Normandy, gripping the rails of the galaxy map in the CIC like it was the last thing keeping her standing. 

She has this little spot between the third and fourth knuckles. She’s told him it’s called a mole (“Isn’t that a terran animal?”)— it’s barely visible, only a little darker than the rest of her skin, but she had it even in their days back on the SR1. 

—

_The videos in Cronos Station had unsettled her more than she’d cared to admit._

"Am I even myself anymore?"

_Her hand looks small in comparison to his, weak and unarmored, fragile. He presses a kiss to the slope of her wrist and swipes a finger over the familiar spot, listening as her breath catches._

"You’re what you’ve always been. You’re Shepard. …The only fan who’s ever seen Archangel up close."

"Why, do you follow his work?"

"At times. I’ve heard he’s a master marksman."

 _A suspicion of a smile. Good._  ”Oh, I wouldn’t bet too much on it… we’ve had a few matches, and I’ve beat him every time.”

"Hey, don’t go too hard on the guy, he’s only turian."  _He buries his face in the curve of her neck— soft and warm, there, he likes it. goosebumps break out on her skin. She’s ticklish, and she hates it._ "You were probably distracting him,"  _he adds, and then nips at her collarbone, laughing when she yelps and jumps in his arms._

_They fall back into the sheets together as he decides this is when she’s at her best._

_Her very best._

_—_

"Headquarters to Vakarian. Anyone in there?"

He blinks, confused, and tunes in to see her staring at him, holding an empty glass. She looks faintly amused. 

"Where were you?"

He just takes the glass from her and pulls her down next to him. 

"Just enjoying the view."


End file.
